Offset Scheme Could Address Ngai Tahu Concerns

The Flexible Land Use Alliance
says that including a Forestry Offset Scheme in the
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation could
significantly address Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu's concerns
about the impact of the scheme on its land values and avoid
the unravelling of its 1998 Treaty settlement.

Ngai Tahu
Kaiwhakahaere Mark Solomon announced this morning that the
Iwi had filed a new claim with the Waitangi Tribunal
designed to protect the value of its 1998 settlement from
the effects of the ETS. Former Treaty of Waitangi
Negotiations Minister Sir Douglas Graham has said the claim
has merit.

A spokesman for the Flexible Land Use
Alliance, Ross Green, said all owners of land planted with
pre-1990 forests are seriously affected by the same land
devaluation.

"Owners of land planted with pre-1990 forests
face retrospective costs that could be as high as $65,000
per hectare if the land is harvested and if the exact same
land is not replanted," he said.

"Even the threat of the
ETS has massively devalued such lands, including those
returned to Ngai Tahu as part of the 1998 settlement, and
land values will fall even more the moment the ETS is
passed."

But Mr Green said that by including a Forestry
Offset Scheme in the ETS, Parliament could significantly
reduce the level of compensation needed under the ETS while
encouraging the planting of approximately 600,000 to 800,000
hectares of eroding hill country land that is currently not
in forestry but for which forestry would be the best land
use, especially when all environmental factors, including
greenhouse gases, erosion and flood prevention, biodiversity
and water quality, are all factored in.

Under a Forestry
Offset Scheme, pre-1990 forest owners harvesting their land
would be able to meet their liabilities under the Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS) either by replanting the exact same
land - as is allowed for under the original draft of the
Bill - or by planting an equivalent area of land elsewhere
in New Zealand that is not currently in forestry. Either
replanting strategy would have identical positive benefits
for the atmosphere.

The National Party has promised the
Flexible Land Use Alliance that it will introduce a
Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to give effect to a
carbon-neutral Forestry Offset Scheme, and the concept has
also had support in principle from the Maori, Green, United
Future, New Zealand First and ACT parties.

"Such an
amendment to the forestry provisions of the ETS would:

* restore confidence in the one industry capable of
sequestering carbon;

* maintain the principle of land
use flexibility that has been the backbone of the New
Zealand economy for more than 100 years;

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